Welcome to the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
News
09.24.2008
SPOHP and the UF History Department will host a lecture and book signing by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson on his latest book THE DAY OF BATTLE: The War in Sicily and Italy.
10.23.2008
The StoryCorps MobileBooth will be in Gainesville, FL from October 23 through November 15, 2008.
Features
The Proctor-Pleasants Award
In
2009, we will launch the Samuel Proctor-Julian Pleasants
Travel Research Grant Award Program.
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More
Publications
Gator
history, Florida newspapers and the 2000 Election in print.
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More
Featured Interview
Robert
Cade, "thirst-quenching" inventor of Gatorade.
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More
How We Began, What We Are
Samuel Proctor, founder
of SPOHP, and Director Emeritus Julian Pleasants speak on how
the oral history program began and its plans for the future.
>>
More
Welcome to the new online home of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida! We are one of the premier oral history programs in the country. Our team of dedicated staff, students and volunteers strive to make histories of Florida, the United States and the broader world accessible to scholars and the general public alike. Interviews from the SPOHP collection have been used widely by university scholars, documentary filmmakers, public radio hosts, community-based organizations and public schoolchildren, just to name a few.
This is an exciting time for SPOHP. We have recently moved to brand-new facilities in Pugh Hall, which is in the heart of the historic district of the University of Florida. Pugh Hall also houses the innovative Bob Graham Center for Public Service. To further campus and community involvement and guide us into the future, SPOHP has established an Advisory Board whose members are drawn from UF, as well as the broader public history community.
SPOHP is dedicated to building on the legacies initiated in 1967 by our founder, Professor Emeritus Samuel Proctor. Today, the Proctor Oral History Collection includes more than 4,000 oral histories, making it the largest oral history archive in the South. Our collections feature more than 900 interviews with Native Americans (Seminoles, Creeks, Cherokees and other nations.) We also have significant numbers of interviews with African American Civil Rights activists, women in Florida, World War II veterans, Florida politicians and pioneering faculty, staff and administrators from the University of Florida.
On our current projects page you may read how we are working with the UF Digital Library Center and the Florida Center for Library Automation to digitize our vast holdings and to make history come alive for you. SPOHP has recently purchased new digital video and audio recording equipment that we will use to train new generations of students to capture and catalogue untapped histories of social justice, everyday life and epic events in our nation and in the world. More about the theory and practice of oral history can be found in our education section.
We are launching new public history and documentary projects this year. In the fall, we are taking a team of undergraduates to the Mississippi Delta to interview veteran Civil Rights activists. You may read about this and other research initiatives on our research page.
We are also mounting a new Oral History Public Program Series in the 2008-2009 academic year that will feature public events on African American history, World War II veterans' experiences and women in professional health occupations. Please contact us if you are interested in participating in any of these events. We are looking for individuals, groups and classes willing to volunteer time to our research and teaching initiatives.
Gathering, transcribing and making oral histories accessible takes resources! SPOHP is continually working on raising new funds to sustain our work. We encourage you to visit our support page today if you would like to contribute to our program. Please email or call us if you have questions about participating or volunteering your time with SPOHP.
I am honored to be appointed incoming director of SPOHP. Outgoing Director Emeritus Julian Pleasants left the program in outstanding shape, and we are relieved that he will continue to help us in the areas of research, fundraising and publishing. In recognition of the amazing work of both Dr. Pleasants and Dr. Proctor, we are initiating the Samuel Proctor and Julian Pleasants Travel Research Award Program, which will fund scholars doing primary research here at SPOHP and at the Special Collections Library at UF.
I encourage you to browse through our Web site to learn more about our program and contact us for more information about our holdings and to learn how you may become involved in SPOHP's work.
Paul Ortiz
Incoming Director
portiz@ufl.edu
Internships
Dr. Ortiz and Dr. Sheila Dickison, UF Honors Program, will work together on the internship program in Oral History. The program, which has been in existence since 2002, gives students the chance to experience many different aspects of oral history collection and processing. Our internship program will be reinstated when Dr. Ortiz arrives on campus in August 2008.
Visit our internship page here for information on for-credit internships offered each semester by the Oral History Program to UF students.
